A Day in the Life of a paediatric nurse and first aid crusader
Grace Larson is a Paediatric Intensive Care Nurse by trade with 17 years’ experience in the area, but has recently turned her attention from the reactive support provided in an intensive care unit to more proactive education. Her roles span across three workplaces but the theme underpinning each of those roles is consistent, educating people on how to get good health outcomes for children.
Grace works as a senior nurse educator with Medcast teaching PALS and ALS and developing paediatric content, she is the co-director of PAEDS Education, her own business that provides education and training for children with complex medical needs in the community and she co-founded the charity The Sisterhood Project with her sister Skye — a not-for-profit that provides free first aid courses to parents and carers in underserviced areas. Grace is also a mother to three children under 10 years of age and lives on a small farm in country Victoria.
05:00 If I am teaching a PALS course for Medcast I generally have to wake up extra early as I live 1.5 hours out of Melbourne so I am out of the house while the sky is still dark and have to watch out for kangaroos as I make my way into the city.
06:30 Must grab my large latte on the commute as it’s unlikely I will have another chance to grab a coffee today. I am quite addicted to caffeine I’m sorry to say and will get a massive headache if I don’t prioritise this.
07:30 We set up the equipment for the day, including the mannequins and skills stations, check the AV for didactic presentations.
08:30 We check the attendees and get them registered for the course.
09:00 Commence the course with a 1.5-hour overview of paediatric resuscitation principals. Ours is a blended course so participants have completed 6 hours of online learning prior to the day. I am just really refreshing this knowledge and allowing for questions or clarification before we begin the skills and assessments.
10:30 Participants have a quick 15-minute morning tea break and along with the other educators I check the set up for the next session.
10:45 We commence the skills stations, usually rotating advanced airway and manual defibrillation. I like to use rapid cycle deliberate practice methods along with practice of microskills (for example, practising getting defibrillation pads on as quickly as possible) during these stations so that participants feel well equipped for the scenarios.
12:30 We break for lunch and the educators and I set up the equipment for the scenario team training then quickly eat some lunch with whatever time remains.
13:00 Participants are split into groups of 6-8 people with a mix of medical and nursing and each is given a scenario of a cardiac arrest in a baby or child. They have to work as a team to resuscitate the patient using the algorithm as per the Australian Resuscitation Council. They also demonstrate good non-technical skills as well, such as closed loop communication and avoiding fixation. We run a scenario for each participant that takes about 10 minutes in total.
16:00 Finish up for the day and pack up the equipment, then enter the data from the course into the admin system so the participants can receive their certificates.
17:00 Sit down at my computer to do some admin and business tasks for my own business PAEDS Education, which provides education to parents and carers who have a child with a complex medical need, along with allied health providers, early childhood educators and school teachers. Develop some education modules for a young child with a seizure disorder that requires emergency administration of midazolam.
18:00 Drive back home, hopefully in time to see my three kids and help put them into bed and hear about their day before they go to sleep. Not every day is as massive as this, but I try to make sure I have spent at least some time with them even if it is just to read them a book before bed.
21:00 Do some work for my charity The Sisterhood Project, replying to emails from groups that are looking to book in free baby and child first aid courses for their clients. We support parents in rural and remote locations, from low socio-demographic backgrounds, and linguistically diverse or First Nations families as children from these backgrounds are more likely to die from preventable accidents and disease. I might also work up a social media post to raise awareness of the inequalities.
23:00 I try to get to bed before midnight, but the reality is that most nights I don’t. I do think I am someone who has lower sleep needs than the average person, but could definitely improve in this area still.
It’s a real privilege to be able to take the skills and knowledge that I have gained in nearly 20 years as a PICU nurse and be able to channel that into proactive education that is contributing to keeping kids alive and out of PICU. I enjoy the diversity of each role but also how they all contribute towards the same outcome of educating people about children’s health.
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